Countee Cullen
There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.' In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things - read and write - and wait.Collection: Work
For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.
I have a rendezvous with life.
I was reared in the conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage.
Your love to me was like an unread book.
The truth is... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else.Collection: Hurt
There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.Collection: Hard Work
If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.Collection: Poet
My poetry has become the way of my giving out what music is within me.Collection: Giving
We shall not always plant while others reapCollection: Plant
We were not made to eternally weep.Collection: Made
The key to all strange things is in thy heart..../ My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.Collection: Home
What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?Collection: Strong
Not for myself I make this prayer, But for this race of mine That stretches forth from shadowed places Dark hands for bread and wine.Collection: Prayer
Never love with all your heart, It only ends in aching.Collection: Heart
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:/ To make a poet black, and bid him sing!Collection: Black
[W]e have always resented the natural inclination of most white people to demand spirituals the moment it is known that a Negro is about to sing. So often the request has seemed to savor of the feeling that we could do this and this alone.Collection: White
The loss of love is a terrible thing; They lie who say that death is worse.Collection: Lying
All day long and all night through, One thing only must I do: Quench my pride and cool my blood, Lest I perish in the flood.Collection: Pride
Ever at Thy glowing altar Must my heart grow sick and falter, Wishing He I served were black.Collection: Heart
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kindCollection: God
Lord, forgive me if my need Sometimes shapes a human creed.Collection: Forgive Me
Whatever lives is granted breath But by the grace and sufferance of Death.Collection: Life And Death
Give but a grain of the heart's rich seed, Confine some under cover, And when love goes, bid him God-speed. And find another lover.Collection: Heart